Twitter unveils new ad tools for better keyword matching

Twitter said today that it has launched new tools that give advertisers better ways to match promoted tweets to search terms.

In a blog post this afternoon, Twitter said that advertisers can now choose to buy promoted tweets against exact keyword matches, phrase matches, or basic keyword matches. This should allow them to place their promoted tweets against a much wider selection of search terms, if they choose to do so.

At the same time, the microblogging service is now allowing advertisers to restrict their promoted tweets from showing up in searches for specific keywords. "For instance, if you sell bacon," Twitter wrote, "you can now keep your campaigns more than six degrees apart from Kevin Bacon by using 'Kevin' as a negative keyword."

And because Twitter knows that advertisers want to take advantage of trends, it will now make it possible for them to buy promoted tweets that show up in searches for trending topics.

"Trends can rise and fall quickly with world events, TV shows and sporting matches, or memes like #OneOfMyFavoriteMovies," the blog post explained. "If you use this new matching option (which is enabled by default for new campaigns), we use relevance signals about your promoted tweets and the trend itself to help increase your campaign's coverage automatically. For example, if a celebrity's pregnancy news starts trending, and you're a retailer of baby clothing, your promoted tweet may be entered into the auction for that trending search."